


Cleave Together

by Curator



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Gen, No kidfic, Non-Linear Narrative, alpha canon only, s01 e01 Caretaker, s03 e14 Coda, s06 e10 Pathfinder, s07 e25 Endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-09 08:03:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20991566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Curator/pseuds/Curator
Summary: Kathryn Janeway and Tom Paris have known each other for a long time. A very long time. Why do they hide their history onVoyager?





	Cleave Together

**Author's Note:**

> _cleave_   
_—verb (used without object):_   
_to adhere closely; stick; cling; remain faithful _   
  
_cleave _   
_—verb (used with object): _   
_to split or divide by as if by a cutting blow _
> 
> * * *
> 
> Thank you to Klugtiger for her beta wisdom.

**Pathfinder**

“Keep a docking bay open for us,” the captain is saying. “We hope to see you soon. The Delta Quadrant may be —”

Harry interrupts her. “The signal’s terminated, Captain.”

She falters a little, then straightens again. She strides away from my station. My shoulder buzzes with the echo of where she massaged it, centimeters from the lone pip on my collar. 

She called me exemplary. 

My dad said he misses me, that he’s proud of me. 

She made sure he knew I’m on the bridge with her, that she trusts me with her ship, her crew. 

I’ve got to get out of here. 

She’s consulting with Tuvok and Harry about modifications to the comm system, about the hyper-subspace technology to keep in contact with headquarters. 

Her tone is clipped, her orders are crisp. 

I’m trying to focus on my console, but there’s nothing to do, not even a minor course correction.

I hear her footsteps. She’s coming back this way. 

Please, make an exception. Please. Help me. 

“Something wrong, Paris?” Chakotay asks from his seat. 

“No, sir,” I reply. My tone is clipped, too. 

“Attention all hands.” She’s in her chair, announcing into the air. She tells the crew about contact from headquarters, how she sent reports so their loved ones will know their accomplishments, that there may be more communication to come. “This is a day for celebration,” she adds. “For feeling a little less alone.”

She cuts the comm. 

Her voice was about to crack, but it didn’t. 

She’s by my shoulder again. “Mr. Paris, I’d like to speak with you in my ready room.” 

Hope catches in my throat and I cough a little. 

A relief conn officer slides into my seat.

The door barely closes behind me when she turns, hands on her hips. She looks into my eyes. 

“Why the long face, Tommy?” she asks. Her voice is gravely and solemn. She’s imitating my dad. My God, I haven’t heard her do imitations in at least ten years. 

I’m laughing. 

No, I’m crying. 

Damn.

She’s hugging me, patting my back. 

Hearing his voice must have messed with her head, too. 

Thank goodness. 

Because this is exactly what I needed. 

“You want to talk about it?” she asks, keeping up the imitation, still patting my back. “I’m all ears, Tommy.”

“Ah, my little bird, always so curious.” Now I’m imitating her dad, my voice deep and resonant. I’m not as good at it, but she knows. “What does your scientist’s eye tell you?”

She’s laughing and crying, too. 

We lean against each other as we walk to her sofa, bumping like drunks trying to walk a straight line. There are tissues and we each take a few from the box. We sit and wipe our faces and she puts her hand on my knee. She speaks as herself. 

“My scientist’s eye tells me we must be losing our minds to be talking like this, but hearing his voice …” 

I pick up where she trails off, “... hearing his voice, it was …”

“... it was home,” she finishes.

I nod. 

“Goddamn.” I look at the crumpled tissue in my hand. “He treated me like shit for so many years and he says he misses me and he’s proud of me and … it’s like ... I didn’t even know how much I needed that out here. It can be so isolating and I just —”

She looks out the viewport. 

I realize I’m an ass.

“Hey.” I put an arm around her shoulders. I wouldn’t usually do that, but we haven’t talked like this in three years. “I’m sorry. You know I understand.”

“I know,” she says in a voice so small she’s Katie again.

Katie who complained the entire time on Paris-Janeway family camping trips, yet told my sisters to knock it off when they made fun of me for being scared at night.

Katie who flirted with every guy at the Berkeley Country Club pool, but still agreed to do cannonballs with me whenever I asked.

Katie who chased me through cornfields and then sat on me until I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone what I read in her diary.

At first, on _Voyager_, all I saw was Katie. 

Now, a lot of the time, I forget Katie’s even here.

I tighten my hold on her shoulders. 

“My dad is proud of you, too,” I say. “He just couldn’t talk familiarly in front of everyone.”

She knows I’m right, but she’s aching for it all the same. It’s clear in the angle of her eyebrows, the downward curl of her mouth. 

“Katie Janeway,” I grumble in an approximation of my father’s voice. “Best damned science officer I ever had. Never did you any favors, Katie. Never will, either. You know that.”

“Yes, sir,” she says, and the corners of her mouth twist upward again.

I exhale slowly. 

Because three years ago, there was no consoling her. 

**Three years earlier — Coda**

It’s the middle of the night, but she comms me professionally with “Janeway to Paris” and, at my raspy “Paris here,” says, “Please report to my quarters, Lieutenant.” 

I throw my commbadge on my pyjamas and hurry to the turbolift. Could I have messed up my conn report? Would that be worth a dressing down at 0200?

Outside her quarters, I’m about to tap the chime when she opens the door and pulls me in by the front of my shirt. She’s in a nightgown that comes up to her neck. Her shoulders are hunched and shaking. Tears are streaked down her cheeks. Her nose is running. 

She cries, “Tommy!” and throws herself into my arms. My first thought is amnesia, or maybe time travel. But I ask and she chokes out her rank and the correct stardate.

She was in sickbay about eight hours ago after a shuttle accident. She’s off duty today for medical rest. That’s all I know.

Her breathing is so ragged it’s hard to understand what she’s trying to tell me, but I get something about an alien trying to trick her into entering a matrix. Then, she’s gasping for air saying, “The alien looked like my father. Tommy, please, we have to talk about my father.”

So we do. 

We sit on her sofa and she clutches my hand so tightly the tips of my fingers turn red. 

We talk about the night she and I wandered away from the campsite in Ásbyrgi Canyon. Her dad found us lying on our backs watching the aurora borealis. Our breaths were visible in the cold air as seven-year-old Tommy and fourteen-year-old Katie planned to serve on the same starship someday with me as a pilot and her as a science officer. 

“And what did your dad say?” I prod her. 

She sniffles. “He said future Starfleet officers should have remembered to wear their jackets.”

“And he had the jackets and he sat with us and we all had hot chocolate from his thermos.” I go to her replicator and get two hot chocolates. We sit on her sofa and sip. 

Tears still leak from her eyes. 

She doesn’t bother to wipe them away. 

I reminisce about how her dad would brag about her tennis championships, her ballet solos, her academic accomplishments. Every time she smiles, though, she seems to turn inward and the tears start again.

“Do you want to tell me more about the alien?” I ask. 

She shakes her head. Her empty mug of hot chocolate is next to mine on the coffee table. “I want to remember who my father was, not who an impostor twisted him to be.”

So we tell each other more stories. We talk until her words come slowly, the weight of her head heavy on my shoulder. 

“I’m sorry you didn’t get your turn, Tommy,” she murmurs. 

I look away. 

Because I try not to think about that. 

Ever. 

How am I to know if it even would have worked out? Maybe her dad would have been a terrible mentor to me. Maybe his death a few months before I graduated the academy wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened. Maybe generations of Parises and Janeways toughening each other up had to end and it was meant to end with me.

Her breathing is even. Her eyes are closed and the tear streaks down her cheeks are dry. 

I shift my weight to keep her head on my shoulder. I slip my other arm under the backs of her knees. I grunt a little when I stand, and she sighs softly but doesn’t stir. 

I carry her to her bedroom. The blanket is kicked down to the foot of the bed, which means she had a nightmare before she commed me. 

I ease her down, her head on a pillow. I slide my arm out slowly. I don’t want to pull her hair.

Her mom was the best tucker-inner, so I try to duplicate the Janeway method with the blanket tight across shoulders and poked under feet.

I tap the computer interface next to the bed to lower illumination to zero in the bedroom and to 5 percent in the living area. The chronometer shows 30 minutes until I’m due on the bridge, and I need to get out of here before the corridor fills.

But I look over and her face is dusted by starlight. There’s no tension on her features, no lines between her eyebrows or hardness to her mouth. 

I stand there, staring, as precious seconds tick past.

“Katie,” I whisper so quietly I can barely hear myself, “I’m sorry about what happened to you, but I’ve missed you so much.”

Because I talk to Captain Janeway nearly every day. But, until today, Katie hadn’t spoken to me in three and a half years.

**Three and a half years earlier — Caretaker**

She’s been in the warden’s office for an hour. 

Katie isn’t one for small talk and neither is the warden. What’s taking them so long?

The door slides open.

“Mr. Paris,” Katie says, “you’re with me.”

She leads me to the exit. 

My legs are shaking. 

Katie hands the guard a padd. The guard reads it, then taps at a console. 

My ankle monitor separates and falls to the ground. I bend to pick it up. My fingers keep fumbling. Finally, I cup my hands and scoop up the powered-down pieces of my imprisonment.

I leave the monitor with the guard and follow Katie out of the penal settlement. 

My steps are unbalanced as air swirls around both my ankles. I fight urges — to dance, to sing, to extend my arms and shout “hallelujah!” until the word echoes back at me from the trees. 

Katie strides into a Starfleet shuttle, so I follow her. 

She sits in the pilot’s seat, so I take shotgun. 

She closes the hatch.

“Katie —” I say.

She whirls on me. Glares. Tells me with her eyes to shut my mouth and keep it closed. 

The penal settlement’s monitoring devices don’t collect data this far from the exit. Maybe Katie doesn’t know that. Or maybe she’s playing it safe. I watch her fingers skip across the console. 

The shuttle lifts off. 

We’re flying! The vibrations of the engine, the clouds whipping by, the ease of maneuvering above everything. My chest feels like it’s going to burst open. I bite the inside of my cheek. The pain assures me I’m awake.

Katie takes us to San Francisco, to headquarters. She doesn’t say a word, so I don’t either.

The buildings, the parks, the bridges. Everything is the same.

My fingertips touch the viewport. 

Of course it’s all the same. I’m the one who changed, who screwed up. 

I put my hand back on my lap.

She sets us down in the Oakland shipyard. 

“Mr. Paris,” Katie says, “my helm officer, Lieutenant Stadi, will meet with you to go over maps of the Badlands and potential flight plans. I’ll see you both at Deep Space Nine.” She stands and starts to leave. 

I block her path. 

“I appreciate the hell out of what you’re doing, Katie, but what’s with the attitude?”

For a second, I think she’s going to punch me. 

Instead, she speaks through gritted teeth. “Commodore Paris, Captain Kirk.”

She watches as my eyes widen in understanding. 

My great-grandmother Commodore Shohreh Paris used to say, “In Starfleet, people have to think you’re James T. Kirk even when you’re Jim Kirk.” She would tell us kids the story of how Starfleet Command accused Kirk of “intellectual chaos” and “emotional behavior” when he just wanted to borrow a ship to look for his one-time first officer, Spock. 

Because Starfleet knew they were friends.

Because Starfleet doesn’t trust compromised judgement. 

“Katie,” I gasp, “three years ago we were drunk as skunks on Starbase 14, singing _Ooby Dooby_. You were at my academy graduation and I was at yours. Our whole childhoods were —”

“Do you want to get out of prison or don’t you?” she hisses.

I watch her walk out of the shuttle. 

I sink back into my seat. 

I rest my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands. 

“Aye, Captain,” I mumble.

An observer on a quick mission to the Badlands. 

Then, my outmeet review. 

Then, I have to believe, Katie will give me a crooked grin and we can be friends again. 

She’s right; we can do this. 

**Seven years later — two weeks after Endgame**

B’Elanna is sitting in the audience section of the courtroom, Miral nestled against her in a sling. My parents and sisters sit next to them in the same row. 

The captain is on the witness stand in a grey-shouldered uniform. She’s swearing with her hand on the Federation charter to tell the truth.

It’s my outmeet review.

_ Voyager  _ was in the Alpha Quadrant for three days when a parole officer opened the door to B’Elanna’s and my quarters. Starfleet suspended security isolation regulations to clear me as the first person to disembark from “the miracle ship that made it home.”

For me, that meant a cell. 

Procedure hasn’t changed — three of the five people on the outmeet review panel are Starfleet guards from the penal settlement. Those guards have watched me for a week and a half. To them, I’m just a human in a grey jumpsuit who stares into the night sky looking for the ship I got to fly on borrowed time that came due.

The review begins.

My attorney asks questions. The captain replies that she and I had a positive working relationship, that I was an asset to _Voyager_, that her professional judgment supports reducing my sentence to time served. 

“Let it be noted,” my attorney says, “the record reflects zero favoritism, only the casual friendship typically shared by officers who serve together.”

A panel member asks the captain, “Don’t the Paris and Janeway families have a long association?” The captain says, yes, of course, many Starfleet families have historical ties. 

The panel member follows up, “But you know Mr. Paris well, do you not?” The captain replies that after seven years she likes to think she knows every member of her crew well, Mr. Paris included.

Three of the panel members speak to each other in low tones. Then one of the Starfleet representatives asks, “Do you really expect this panel to believe your judgment is in no way compromised regarding the son of your first commanding officer?” The captain was already sitting up straight, but she somehow sits up straighter. She demands evidence if the panel wishes to accuse her of any breach in protocol or command ethics.

The panelists confer again.

The back of my neck is damp.

My armpits are swamps.

A single bead of sweat rolls down my back. 

The Starfleet representative withdraws the question. 

“However,” another panelist adds, “we are far from finished here.”

In response to rapid-fire questions, the captain tells the panel she trusted me to expose the traitor on  _ Voyager _ because she needed someone who wasn’t Starfleet or Maquis to carry out her plan. She says the review panel should consider me already rehabilitated from the ocean planet incident due to her application of the maximum punishment permitted under regulations. She states warp 10 resulted in mental and physical side effects so I should not be considered at fault for my actions any more than I would be if an alien presence had been in control of my mind.

My ankle monitor beeps. 

I put a hand to my thigh to still my jiggling leg.

The captain is dismissed from the witness stand. Her back is straight as she exits the courtroom through a side door. 

A panelist calls Tuvok to testify. He’s wearing a grey-shouldered uniform, too.

“Why,” a panelist asks, “did your mutiny training holo-program entail Lieutenant Paris working with Captain Janeway to defeat the mutineers?”

Tuvok states that of the available bridge officers, I was the most logical choice. When pressed, he explains his own character needed to be in the brig with other Starfleet personnel and Chakotay had to lead the Maquis.

“What about Ensign Harry Kim?” a panelist asks. “Wouldn’t an officer fresh out of the academy be a more  _ logical _ choice than a convicted felon? Why would Mr. Paris, of all options, be so loyal to a captain he ostensibly barely knew?”

Tuvok states holo-program credibility was key, and he did not feel Mr. Kim had the mettle necessary to intimidate the mutineers. 

Goddamn. I don’t know what Tuvok does or doesn’t know, but I’m starting to believe him. 

Because of our friendship, the panel won’t call Harry to the stand. B’Elanna is out, too. I’ve read history books that mention character witnesses, but that concept died out centuries ago. The Doc, as an artificial life form, is not considered a legal person, so he can’t testify either. 

The captain secured pardons for  _ Voyager’s _ Maquis crewmembers, but a panelist still calls Chakotay’s name like it’s so much garbage to be recycled. 

He’s on the stand. My head tilts as I take in the sight of him in a brown sweater, no commbadge on his chest. 

One of the non-Starfleet panelists says to Chakotay, “Please share your evaluation of Mr. Paris during his time on _Voyager_.” 

Chakotay offers a positive assessment of my work on the bridge and in sickbay. When there’s no reaction from the panel, he adds that I took the initiative to create holo-simulations for the entire crew to enjoy.

The silence stretches.

Please don’t mention Fair Haven. The captain and I lost our minds a little after talking to my dad and never should have named our characters Tommy Boy and Katie O'Clare. We were morons. I knew it then and I know it now. I don’t want to know it back at the penal settlement. Please.

Chakotay is dismissed from the stand. 

Recess — decision forthcoming. 

I’m led to a holding cell. 

The forcefield snaps on.

I lean against the wall and push the heels of my hands against my eyelids. 

No point in thinking, so I don’t.

I’m not sure if it’s been ten minutes or an hour when the forcefield snaps off. 

I’m led to the courtroom. 

No one on the outmeet review panel is smiling. 

“Mr. Paris,” one of them says, “you are deemed rehabilitated and hereby released from custody. This decision is final.”

My ankle monitor falls open. It hits the floor with a clang. 

My vision blurs and I hear my father thank my attorney. 

I’m on a transporter pad. 

I’m at my parents’ house. 

I’m sitting on the living room sofa. 

There’s conversation around me. B’Elanna sits to my left and puts one of my hands on our sleeping daughter. I blink. This can be my life again — my little family with the woman and baby I love.

I hear my mother open the front door. 

My father is thanking someone again. 

The sofa dips to my right. 

“We did it, Tommy,” she whispers. “We did it.”

She hugs me and I hug her back and we hold on tight. 

I hear B’Elanna asking my dad what’s going on. He’s trying to explain but he’s doing a piss-poor job.

“B’Elanna,” I look at my beautiful wife, our child in her arms, “I want you to meet Katie Janeway. We grew up together.”

Katie laughs. I’ve heard Captain Janeway laugh and it’s all right. But Katie’s laugh is sunshine.

B’Elanna is sputtering. Confused. A little angry.

But Katie is an expert in diplomacy and she helps B’Elanna understand. It was supposed to be a short mission. We could have gotten home any day. The stakes were too high to risk telling anyone. 

Eventually, the Maquis fighter inside B’Elanna seems to like the idea of using Starfleet’s own biases against it.

“I’m just having a little trouble picturing the two of you as kids together,” she says. 

So my dad tells her how Katie and I crashed his yacht into Yerba Buena Island during my fifth birthday party. 

“I was twelve years old!” Katie rolls her eyes. “What did I know about the stupidity of overriding autopilot?”

“You knew enough to tell me the faster I drove the boat, the sooner I could open my presents,” I remind her. 

She play-punches my arm. 

My mom and sisters tell more stories and B’Elanna doesn’t laugh at the funny parts. 

When Miral starts to fuss, B’Elanna excuses herself. “I’ll feed her in the guest room,” she says. She looks at Katie, then at me, then back at Katie again before walking away.

I’ll have to smooth that over. 

“Will you all come to the farmhouse tomorrow?” Katie asks. “My mom and sister want to see Tommy. We can have dinner.”

Everyone agrees, so Katie comms her mother to set the meal time. My sisters request their favorites, my parents offer to bring dessert, and it’s all so goddamn _normal_.

Katie checks the chronometer and says she has to go. 

I hold each of her hands in mine. “You were right — about everything. Thank you.”

“It wasn’t easy,” she gives my hands a squeeze, “for you or for me. And we slipped a few times. But it’s worth it for you to have your freedom.”

I walk her to the door. “Did you ever tell Chakotay or Tuvok?”

She shakes her head. “Never even crossed my mind. If we get your commission back, we can figure out a middle way forward. But, for now, let’s just be proud of ourselves for keeping the secret.”

“Oh,” I say, my hip resting against the doorframe, “I’m great at keeping secrets. You know that.”

She blushes. 

I lean down and whisper in her ear, “Page fifteen of your diary. Your high school exobiology class lab partner. Under the bleachers in the gym.”

She gives me the crooked grin.

I wink. 

“See you tomorrow, Katie.”

“See you tomorrow, Tommy.”

It’s good to be home.

**Author's Note:**

> Think B’Elanna would be livid about being lied to? You’re right. And that’s only the beginning. I’m working on a P/T sequel from her point of view.


End file.
